


Honesty

by EntreNous



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Canonical Character Death, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-07
Updated: 2006-04-07
Packaged: 2017-12-08 17:35:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/764113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EntreNous/pseuds/EntreNous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Xander's mother Jenny dies, he blames himself.  It takes talking to his son for Angel to figure out who he blames.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Honesty

**Author's Note:**

> The original plan for the narrative would have featured incest between Angel and Xander. Though I stopped at a stand-alone status, I've included an "Implied Incest" tag because this portion of the story was meant to set up the background from where that type of relationship would arise.
> 
> Please note I've tagged this story "Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued". I'm including it with my other archived items on AO3 in part for completion's sake, and in part because if anyone is hoping to find a fic with these characters and this set of tropes, well, here it is, unfinished though it may be. Thank you.

Angel started with a gasp as he felt himself turning on the bed. Dark, much darker than he’d remembered from when he’d first stretched out staring at the ceiling. He’d fallen asleep after all despite tossing and turning, until someone’s voice had woken him. 

“What?” he asked in a thick voice. “Hey.”

The door creaked open. “Dad?” 

He brought his right hand to his face, rubbed the palm against it in an effort to wake up. 

When he opened his eyes and raised himself on his elbows, he squinted at Xander standing in the doorway. In the dim light drifting into the bedroom from the hallway, he could just make out Xander biting his lower lip. The boy’s shaggy hair tumbled around his face, and his eyes were wide and dark. He looked like a little kid again, instead of the fifteen-year-old he was.

“Sorry,” Xander whispered. “I didn’t mean--”

“Couldn’t sleep?”

“No.” Xander took another step into the room and then looked down at the drawstring to his pajama bottoms, tugging on it absently. 

Angel hesitated for a moment before he flipped back the covers. “C’mere.”

Xander padded over and slid onto the vacant side of the king-sized mattress. Jenny’s side. No, not any longer. “Sorry,” he said again.

“Nothing to be sorry for.” He turned on his side as he settled the sheet and comforter, and Xander did likewise, facing him.

“Just -- I’m too old for this,” Xander said in a sheepish voice.

Angel said nothing at first, just reached out and brushed the unruly locks out of his son’s eyes. Xander’s eyes closed as Angel hesitated and then continued combing his fingers through his hair. “Remember when you used to do this when you were really little?”

Xander’s face scrunched up, and his eyelashes fluttered. “Sort of. I don’t know. It’s been so long.”

Angel snorted, a quick bark of remembered humor more than a real laugh. “When you were three years old, four maybe. You’d worm your way into the middle, jabbing us with your elbows when you’d had a nightmare or when you were too excited to sleep. I’d try to get you to go back to your room, but you’d always end up back here no matter how many times I hauled you back or how many stories I read you. Then you’d kick and talk and ask for drinks of water. Keep us both up all night. Then just when we’d gotten over the idea of ever getting any sleep, you’d end up sideways or upside down with your feet on my chest, snoring like a foghorn.”

Xander laughed, but there was a desperate tinge to the sound. “I remember . . . remember mom kissing me on the forehead when I got in the bed. And she’d rub my back and say ‘Rough night, huh, kid?’ ” 

A smile flickered over Angel’s face at that. Just for a second. 

Angel didn’t notice he was drifting off to sleep until he heard Xander whisper in the dark. “She always smelled so nice.”

At that he blinked his eyes open, fixed them on darkness and the lone narrow stretch of light across the ceiling. “Yeah. She --” Angel pressed his lips together to keep from speaking the present-tense correction. No more present tense, not for Jenny. Because Jenny was gone forever, and every scent of her, from the bed they shared, to her clothes in the closet, to the air in the house, was going to slowly but surely disappear.

“Daddy?” Xander said in a whisper.

When had Xander last called him that? With some effort Angel answered, “Yeah?”

“I’m sorry,” Xander said. His face crumpled as he started to cry. “I’m so sorry.”

“Shhh, shh,” Angel crooned, pulling Xander forward and into his arms. “Not your fault. Nothing to do with you.”

Xander made a noise of protest, but it was muffled by his sobs and Angel’s chest. 

“Xander, she was coming back a night early because of her choice, because she wanted to see you,” Angel said softly. To see him in time for his birthday, he added to himself. Just like Jenny to change her plans like that. “You didn’t make the accident happen. You didn’t make the roads slippery. You didn’t even know she was on her way home. This was not your fault.”

Thank god when he said the words he realized that he also believed them. 

He hugged his son closer in relief, pressing a kiss to the top of his head, and rocked him as he hadn’t done for over twelve years.


End file.
